The Air Current

The latest from The Air Current put the most important industrial relationship in U.S. aerospace - the interdependent union of Boeing & Spirit AeroSystems - under the microscope, revealing a bitter previously unreported 2018 lawsuit between the two and interviewing more than a dozen current, former and retired executives and senior staff at both companies to chronicle the complex relationship.

The 2005 divestiture of Wichita to create Spirit “ranks as the highest misstep” Boeing has ever made, according to one retired Boeing commercial airplane development executive. It was a view shared unanimously across TAC’s interviews as we explored the bigger strategic question: Is it time for Boeing to bring Spirit home again?

Inside the strained union of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems Carving off its Kansas and Oklahoma operations was a strategic mistake, Boeing execs past and present conclude. Is buying back spirit AeroSystems in the cards?

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